Games Workshop Ho! Man O’ War: Corsair Announced

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Wander from room to room around the awkward teenage house parties of my youth, and you will stumble into a conversation about Man O’ War, the Games Workshop tabletop wargame. Or maybe it’s a conversation about Manowar, the power metal band. How could you tell? The t-shirts and unit/song names are essentially the same. The participants certainly are. The secret is: if the word ‘steel’ is said more than twice per sentence, it’s about Manowar the band.

Following that rule, you’ve by now guessed that this post is about the board game. And, given Games Workshop’s current practise of licensing everything to everyone, you’ve probably guessed that a PC game based on Man O’ War is coming.

“Man O’ War: Corsair is a video game of high adventure, naval combat and exploration based on the Games Workshop classic Man O’ War table top game. Play as a rogue Captain of the Empire or Champion of Chaos, personally navigating your vessel in third person across the Great Western Ocean while plundering enemy ships, visiting ports, trading and making legends of your deeds across the land and sea! Engage in boarding actions, with direct control over your Captain and take the fight to the enemy.”

You’ll get to build a crew, buy ships, broadside and board enemy vessels, plunder booty, and defeat/be eaten by legendary monsters like that big pointy fish up top there.

Man O’ War: Corsair is due on Windows and Mac in 2016 before the end of March. Here’s the announcement teaser trailer:

I Love the warhammer world as much as the next mid-thirties gentleman with a touch or arrested development, but come on, these games are mostly rubbish. I bought that humble bundle a while ago and was dissapointed by classic favorites like Warhammer Quest, and Chainsaw Warrior. Other games such as Snotling fling, Carnage and Storm of Vengeance were just other games reskinned and resold.

So, no, I’m holding judgment on this. Hopefully it will be great but to be fair, in all honesty, it looks crap.

I’d much rather they (Games-Workshop) sold their IPs to say Fantasy Flight or another games manufacturer, that way we get to play these games as they were intended. On a Table with actual stuff to grab and move and roll and shake.

I’d rather they finally went full-on digital with their big games. I just can’t be bothered with assembling and painting miniatures. Give me a decent, let me stress that: DECENT conversion of WH40K or WHFB (since I don’t know how good Age of Sigmar is), please!

Thing is, at their heart, WHB and 40k are TERRIBLE games. Its their worlds that really shine. Direct digital conversions of tabletop mechanics, as Space hulk, Warhammer quest and Chainsaw warrior have proven, mostly lead to dissapointing games.

Best keep it within the spirit and use the fantasitc world building and background to create new experiences suited for a digital experience. Dawn of War: Chaos Rising was a brilliant example, as was Space Marine.

Blood Bowl seems to be the exception to prove the rule, and I put that down entirely to the last few years of it’s rule development being nearly entirely out of GW’s hands and instead in a committee of fans of the game.

Then GW killed it and we’ve been stuck with the same rulebook for a half decade now.

I was almost going to ask this but I guess it was said. I was wondering why they haven’t taken warhammer 40k to the PC with a hearthstone like approach, seems like a no brainer.

It might be that special thing the PC does, get so many games played that any flaws in your system bubble right to the top. Was wondering if they might fear that happening, not sure.

Gamesworkshop kinda owns all these great IP’s and do the stupidest things with them. A year or so ago everyone is like, hey, bring your stuff to the PC already, finally they are like YEAH, and sell their stuff to everybody with seemingly no care to the quality of the product.

Well, one day collect miniature figures online and watch them battle it out with slick animations and effects, turn based style, one day…

The settings are also terrible, honestly. Every uncreative fantasy trope ever made by someone else, and then GW has the gall to jealously guard “their” IP. The only reason why the Warhammer setting is so great is that they took all those tropes and, much like the band Manowar, made it bigger and louder past its sensible limit. Yes, it’s awesome; but let’s not kid ourselves by calling it “good”.

If you’re not a fan of assembling and painting miniatures, then I think you’re missing the point of a tabletop miniatures game.

The rules for 40k are rubbish. My friend finally got a couple of us to start playing and my Tau were completely crushed by some Eldar psykers – with no real chance to ever fight back. The game is a completely unbalanced mess. GW seems to want to keep it this way in order to force people to buy new crap.

Sadly, I do enjoy assembling and painting, so I may be their target consumer in the end.